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Both national and global companies will participate in the upcoming Brazilian Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) pilot project. Banco Central do Brasil, the country’s central bank, will start adding members to the digital real platform around mid-June 2023.
On May 24, the central bank released the final list of participants in the CBDC pilot project. Participants were selected from 36 applications submitted by individual companies and consortiums, “more than 100 institutions in total”. The final number of participants is 14; however, some represent groups of companies. For example, US tech giant Microsoft; Brazilian bank Banco Inter; and digital technology company 7COMm are one of the 14 participants.
Other participants include Visa, Santander and several Brazilian banking institutions such as Itaú Unibanco, BTG Pactual and Banco Bradesco.
In the current phase of the digital real-life pilot, the central bank will test the privacy and programmability features of its platform with a single use case: a delivery and payment protocol for federal government securities.
Related: 7 Central Banks and BIS Continue to Explore Current Policy Issues for Retail CBDC
The CBDC pilot project in Brazil was officially announced in 2022. The value of the digital real will be pegged to the national fiat currency, the real. It will have a fixed supply and will be minted over time.
The largest country in Latin America with a population of 214 million remains a magnet for global cryptocurrency companies. In January, Binance and Mastercard teamed up to launch a prepaid cryptocurrency card in the country. Since March, Coinbase has been partnering with local payment providers to offer cryptocurrency purchases, as well as deposits and withdrawals in local currency. On May 19, the central bank granted Latam Gateway, a Binance payment provider in Brazil, a license to operate as a payment institution and e-money issuer .
